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Comment on Why is the manosphere on the rise? UN Women sounds the alarm over online misogyny

In my experience the problem isn’t the masculinity influencers. Those are just the symptom of misandry in media and a near-total lack of support in society for men, especially young men. When you go on social media almost all discussion concerning men is about how they are the root of all evil, and everything they do is wrong. It’s a never ending stream of shaming with no clear way out. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t: If you try to defend yourself or talk about your own problems as a man, it is labeled as misogyny. “Be vulnerable and open up” they say but if you do it’s “don’t center men you privileged fuck” or “you’re being a crybaby”.

All this pressure is an impossible equation to solve for a young man who has been pushed by misandrists into insecurity and longs to be accepted in his community. Not just because society’s demands are internally inconsistent, but because they clash with patriarchal ideals among most the typical women you’ll meet IRL.

I’m past 40 and while in my head I still consider myself progressive, I used to show it much more when I was younger. I was honest about my insecurities, I would try not to take up too much space as a man, would try to split responsibilities equally, and so on. At every turn this has caused me problems in relationships, not least with my wife of 10 years who left me for some muscular macho guy because she “doesn’t feel like I can take care of her”.

So now, while I wish society was different, I try to balance on the needle of acting like I’m not as progressive as I am so women don’t “get the ick”, while not tripping into misogyny. It’s an extremely difficult game to play and it frustrates me to no end that this is where we’re at. I’m moving in soon with a woman who I’ve ben dating for a couple of years and it’s clear that she desires that I take a leadership position in the home, whereas I’m just longing for a partner who will share the burden with me instead of becoming my subject. But I feel like I have to play that game or she’ll eventually lose interest.

Bell Hooks wrote about this already in 2003. But somehow it is completely lost on these UN Women pundits that nothing will change unless everybody (including women) change. You can’t just blame it on “masculinity influencers”. Why are these influencers gaining popularity? Because they offer some way out, some positive message for young men who are completely starved for positive role models.

I am convinced that a woman’s voice will always count 10x more than the manosphere, if it offers compassion and guidance rather than hate. But there are none.

FWIW, the “men’s health month” has brought me some hope in this. It’s the first time in a decade that I’ve seen women stand up to defend and show compassion for men, and I think young men will suck that up like a sponge.

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EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

When you go on social media almost all discussion concerning men is about how they are the root of all evil, and everything they do is wrong. It’s a never ending stream of shaming with no clear way out. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t: If you try to defend yourself or talk about your own problems as a man, it is labeled as misogyny. “Be vulnerable and open up” they say but if you do it’s “don’t center men you privileged fuck” or “you’re being a crybaby”.

This is a sentiment often repeated by manosphere influencers and there’s no actual tangible evidence it exists and I think that’s the real issue. The influencers aren’t at all a symptom of a problem men are facing, they are selling men on a problem that doesn’t exist (for money).

I have never at any point in my life (which encompasses the entire lifespan of the internet) been subjected to any significant amount of misandry online or in person. When men talk about experiencing misandry online, it’s almost always in the context of them making comments on content geared towards a women’s issue and invalidating the women’s issue while simultaneously making it about themselves.

The real issue is solely man-created and exists solely in the mind, and the manosphere exists to tell you in its not in your mind, that’s it’s real, and that it’s everyone’s fault but your own. They monetize your attention, they sell you supplements and books, none of which are actually designed to help you solve your problems, because if you escape your cycle of self destruction, the money stops.

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- tias@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  This is a sentiment often repeated by manosphere influencers and there’s no actual tangible evidence it exists and I think that’s the real issue.
  
  This is why I feel there is such a disconnect. I just have to open TikTok to see this, so if researchers are not finding evidence then I’m very curious how that’s possible. Heck, you just need to look at the typical masculinity influencer content to see it because it’s not just them making shit up - they will often use clips of misandrist women to get their point across. So they basically find the evidence for you.
  
  During men’s mental health month this has been particularly easy to encounter as there was a trend of women making as much noise as possible with the caption “me when it’s time to take a moment of silence for men’s mental health”.
  
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  - EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    I just have to open TikTok to see this, so if researchers are not finding evidence then I’m very curious how that’s possible.
    
    TikTok is incredibly algorithm driven and ultimately driven by the content you consume and interact with. When you go online and “see something everywhere” you have to look at it under the lens of what’s being targeted at you, vs what you encounter in more neutral spaces. When you open TikTok, the percentage of misandrist content you encounter is not representative of all content on the internet. No matter how niche or rare any given subject is, your algorithm will find it and server it to if it thinks you’ll engage with it, positively or negatively.
    
    My TikTok contains zero misandrist content. In order for the researchers to experience what you experience, they’d have to build an algorithm profile tailored to that content. But that would be useless, because it would prove nothing. It’s a question of “Is the world full of misandrists out to get men” or “have the men surrounded themselves with misandrists”.
    
    You have effectively done the latter. Now when I say this is “your fault” I don’t mean to say that you’ve gone and done this on purpose. The algorithms have a heavy hand to play in this of course and that’s a real issue. But at the end of the day, how the algorithms target you is a result of your engagement and behavior. The more you rail against your perceived world of misandry, the more the algorithm is going to inundate you with it. “Society” hasn’t done this to you, nor have women as a group of people.
    
    The only way to try and approach this objectively is to minimize algorithmic influence and look at the saturation of this content in a more controlled setting. How often do you see misandry appear in content not specifically designed for you to experience it? That’s where you start to see the truth of the matter.
    
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    tias@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    You’re straying from the point which is that this content exists, is widespread, and is ultimately the root cause. This isn’t hard for a serious researcher to see if they could just be bothered to sit down with the people they are “researching” and actually discover what their online life looks like. Whatever opinions you have on my personal life and choices are irrelevant. The reason I brought my personal experiences up is that I think they are representative and an obvious reason why men seek their refuge in masculinity influencers. You can criticize them all you want, but as far as I’m concerned that only underscores my point.
    
    The misandry is also not limited to algorithm-heavy outlets like TikTok - when I talk about media I mean all social media including Facebook, Reddit, Instagram but also old media such as newspapers. When the #killallmen and #ihatemen hashtags were popular on Twitter the women promoting it were given their own columns in newspapers and a platform in podcasts by national state radio, at least here in Sweden. One popular “feminist” profile, Natashja Blomberg, would for example publicly say “I wonder if it’s a daughter or an abortion” when she was pregnant. She garnered support and was platfformed both by prominent political party leaders and news outlets. She was given her own column and given space in podcasts, where she could complain how disgusting she found her own son to be and how nobody is interested in what men think.
    
    You can’t just let this go on for years, without being challenged, without offering alternative positive messages, and believe that men will just shake it off. They’re turning to these influencers because they were pushed there. I whole heartedly disagree with your assertion that the problem is in somebody’s head, but even if it is, society has a responsibility to help those people and it doesn’t.
    
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  - lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    This is a sentiment often repeated by manosphere influencers and there’s no actual tangible evidence it exists and I think that’s the real issue.
    
    This is why I feel there is such a disconnect. I just have to open TikTok to see this, so if researchers are not finding evidence then I’m very curious how that’s possible. Heck, you just need to look at the same masculinity influencer content they are talking about to see it, because it’s not just them making shit up from nothing - they will often use clips of misandrist women to get their point across. So they basically find the evidence for you.
    
    Why has no one here said “links”?
    
    People here just talk in circles instead of providing concrete support.
    
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    barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Dadvocate would be a good source for this stuff especially if you don’t fancy your watch history to get infested by misogynists. Just a gal who doesn’t pull guard.
    
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- Gonzako@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Nah, I can attest. Misandry has populated a lot of online spaces with most content that even mentions men painting them in a terrible light. (Man or Bear is the most prominent example). The fact that teens are growing in this ambiance that hates them just for being CIS male is going to be terrible for them. Modern feminism has lost most of their male supporters because they’ve just gone down the deep end instead of keeping with their originals ideals of equality. Tho, I geniely believe that feminism should have ditched the name for equality, in the 2015s. It’s more associated with misandry than equality right now among other men.
  
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  - EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I can attest that that isn’t at all true. Your perception has been warped by these influencers very much on purpose to see conflict where there isn’t any. Society, or women, do not “hate men” just for being men. And this persecution complex and victim mentality is what’s destroying the minds of these young men today.
    
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    Gonzako@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    No? I don’t genuely see any of those “Influencers” you keep mentioning. This is talking about my own experience online. I go online and I see hate and the only one being called out is the mysoginistic one. I don’t follow Jordan Peterson nor Andrew Tate (I can’t really even name any others). This is the perception of someone that accepted feminism on their growing years and basically has just grown completely detached from the movement. Following their advice has led me nowhere so I had to find my own way.
    
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- WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  That’s because most of the misandry is ironically caused by men. You can’t fucking breathe the way you want, without another man finding a weakness in that, and shitting all over you.
  
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- socsa@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeah this thread is fucking wild. I can't believe people here are up voting literal manoshpere shit. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
  
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spizzat2@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
This is a fairly well-written and nuanced take that mostly aligns with my experiences.

If you try to defend yourself or talk about your own problems as a man, it is labeled as misogyny.

I think this is one of the bigger parts of the issue. There seem to be two types of responses when men open up. One is to shut them down for one reason or another, and the other one is the manosphere saying “yes, that is a problem, and I have a solution”. That option is obviously going to be more appealing.

We need a third option of commiseration for problems without simple solutions. Guys need a space to vent about these issues, without it being seen as an effort to take those opportunities away from others. Of course, we need to pick our forum. Not every space is a place to vent frustrations, which is probably why you get rebuked.

So how do we develop the third option? Well, open up to your male friends. Ask them how they’re doing, and actually listen for an answer. If they just give you “I’m good, how about you?”, that’s your moment. It’s probably going to feel unnatural, and you might not get the response you’re looking for. If you’re worried about how it will be received, maybe start small. Explain something you’re concerned about. You can acknowledge solutions offered, but try not to focus on them. If you get shut down among your friends, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate that friend group.

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captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve seen two things out of “Men’s Health Awareness Month”:

The rainbow hair squad bawling about "No it’s Pride Month"

People posting lazy image macros with lies like “It’s okay to show your feelings” in them.

I have no fucking interest in National Whatever Day or Something Awareness Month. They always end up an exercise in worthless busybody tokenism, and the more of them we put in place the more hilarious collisions we’re going to find. I got a great idea, let’s start observing National Temperence Week as the first week of May, so that we can generate pointless anger at the people drinking Corona and margaritas on Cinco De Mayo. I can hear Latinos now saying “Oh what the fuck have the white people made themselves mad about now?”

The messaging I have seen about “Men’s Health Awareness Month” has mostly been addressed to men saying things like “It’s okay to share, it’s okay to cry, there are five lights.” His lived experience has shown that no, it is not. He is overwhelmingly expected to be stable, and any display of weakness will permanently lessen his worth in anyone’s eyes. Telling HIM to open up when those are the consequences he knows await, addressing the problem as a change HE needs to make is just pissing up a rope.

I’m going to use the movie Fight Club as an illustrative device here: Pretty much all of the men in this setting find their social and emotional needs unmet by the structure of society. The buzzword you see thrown around today for this is “lack of third spaces.” The men in the testicular cancer group have basically only one pain to share with each other: loss of family, marriages, jobs etc. The men respond strongly positively to Fight Club, which at first is basically an underground bare knuckle boxing ring started by a mentally ill man. I have a hypothesis that something like a pickup game of basketball would have served much the same function, that what the men in this setting really need is time to do physical activities with other men, to form those bonds the way men actually do.

On that note, I’ll be right back.
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- Welt@lazysoci.al ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  You’re a sensible fellow and I appreciate your rational perspective and positive, encouraging attitude to your fellow human beings. Good idea on the virtual hike too, I’ll do that next time I’m out and about if I remember.
  
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kshade@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

I’m past 40 and while in my head I still consider myself progressive, I used to show it much more when I was younger. I was honest about my insecurities, I would try not to take up too much space as a man, would try to split responsibilities equally, and so on. At every turn this has caused me problems in relationships, not least with my wife of 10 years who left me for some muscular macho guy because she “doesn’t feel like I can take care of her”.

It always seems to come down to traditional gender roles being dehumanizing. Men traditionally aren’t allowed to be “weak”, women traditionally aren’t allowed to be “strong”. It took me a while to fully internalize (not just know) that, first and foremost, both are people with all the complexities that come with that. I personally would rather die alone than live every day in fear that I’m not pretending well enough to fit a stereotype. I’m probably over-dramatizing though, just really can’t stand stereotyping.

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TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

In my experience the problem isn’t the masculinity influencers. Those are just the symptom of misandry in media and a near-total lack of support in society for men, especially young men. When you go on social media almost all discussion concerning men is about how they are the root of all evil, and everything they do is wrong. It’s a never ending stream of shaming with no clear way out.

Oh yeah…I’m totally feeling that in this thread and every other one on this site talking about gender. Sure really needs like it’s women attacking us men and not the other way round /s. It’s not like the largest social platform on the Internet (reddit), and the largest podcast on the Internet(Joe Rogan) and the largest news network (fox) is biased against women or anything.

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t: If you try to defend yourself or talk about your own problems as a man, it is labeled as misogyny. “Be vulnerable and open up” they say but if you do it’s “don’t center men you privileged fuck” or “you’re being a crybaby”.

By who? This is pure projection. Look at who is being up votes and down votes in this very thread.

this pressure is an impossible equation to solve for a young man who has been pushed by misandrists into insecurity and longs to be accepted in his community. Not just because society’s demands are internally inconsistent, but because they clash with patriarchal ideals among the typical women you’ll meet IRL.

Is the misandrist in the room with us right now? Where are these misandrist? I’m man, I don’t have any misandrist hounding me. But maybe that’s because I don’t consider women defending themselves as misandry…

I’m past 40 and while in my head I still consider myself progressive, I used to show it much more when I was younger. I was honest about my insecurities, I would try not to take up too much space as a man, would try to split responsibilities equally, and so on.

As a fellow middle aged man, I can already tell you have an epic serving of highly divorced man energy. Being progressive isn’t about withdrawing and shriveling up like an old wrinkly penis. It is about defending the people who need it and making space for people who deserve it, it is about class solidarity.

At every turn this has caused me problems in relationships, not least with my wife of 10 years who left me for some muscular macho guy because she “doesn’t feel like I can take care of her”.

Yep, I was right. I am a “muscular macho guy”, you know what I also am… A feminist. Don’t hate on feminism just because you have no game.

to balance on the needle of acting like I’m not as progressive as I am so women don’t “get the ick”, while not tripping into what would be labeled misogyny. It’s an extremely difficult game to play and it frustrates me to no end that this is where we’re at. I’m moving in soon with a woman who I’ve been dating for a couple of years and it’s clear that she desires that I take a leadership position in the home, whereas I’m just longing for a partner who will share the burden with me instead of becoming my subject.

Get the ick? You said you were fourty…right? You can be masculine and still be a feminist dude, women like being respected…you know because they’re people. I can tell you this now, if you keep taking relationships advice from a bunch of influencers, it’s not going to end well.

You can be masculine, have class solidarity, and be a feminist. I rebuilt my own house, work with my hands, lift 3-4 times a week, and am currently building an AR-15…I’m also a leftist who believes feminism is a foundational theory of class consciousness.

Guess what, Ive been happily married to a professional dancer for 10 years… maybe the feminism isn’t the fucking problem bro.

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socsa@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I legit can't believe that a comment which unironically contains the phase "media misandry" and recounting a tale about getting left behind for chad is getting upvoted on the fediverse. Damn it reall did not take long for this place to jump the shark.

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